Deepak Chopra's Beauty Tip

The invitation was hard to resist: Join us for breakfast with Deepak Chopra, and be sure to arrive on time—the morning will begin with meditation.

Not a bad way to kick off the day, I thought, a little quiet time in the presence of a prophet of holistic medicine whose best-selling books bring insight to the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton. I was curious, in particular, what Chopra, who holds a medical degree and deep expertise in the mind-body connection, would have to say on the subject of physical appearance. If a healthy mind is essential for a healthy body, and vice versa, then does a balanced life also translate into healthy hair and radiant skin?

Chopra, by the way, looks boyish for a man old enough for retirement. "We measure the aging process by what I call biomarkers," he said during the launch of Deepak's Law of Attraction, a lecture and guided meditation produced for the Play Button MP3 device (available exclusively from AHAlife.com). "One of them is wrinkles, because we lose collagen, the fat content of the skin goes down, et cetera. But there are other biomarkers: blood pressure, bone density, immune function. When you put them together, they give you a good idea about how a person is aging."

"I'm not going to tell you my chronological age," Chopra said with a laugh, "but I can tell you my biological age is very young." How does he do it? With exercise, sleep, healthy diet... The usual suspects. But also through calming his mind and body twice a day. "We now know that you can reverse your biological age by 15 to 20 years by doing certain things, and one of them is meditation," he explains. "When your mind quietens, your body quietens, and self-repair mechanisms kick in by themselves." In other words, prolonging the body's natural ability to repair cell damage--an ability that, sadly, fades over time. He suggests meditating for twenty minutes twice a day.